


Tree and Leaf

by lynndyre



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-18
Updated: 2013-08-18
Packaged: 2017-12-23 21:23:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/931235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lynndyre/pseuds/lynndyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Celeborn and Legolas bond during the Fellowship's stay in Lothlorien.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tree and Leaf

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alexcat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexcat/gifts).



The sylvan-accented Sindarin of the Galadhrim was to Legolas' ears both strange and familiar, after weeks without hearing another Elven voice the stranger's voices were sweet and welcoming, amidst his sorrow for Mithrandir, and he was glad of them. The company of his kin was a balm to Legolas' spirit. Yet also it called to mind other things, lines drawn taut connecting realisations he was not yet able to frame. And so, roused from serenity and communion into contemplation, he wandered the wood absent of both the Lorien elves and the others of the Fellowship.

At the boundary where the mellyrn began to merge into the rest of the forest, and the silver trunks mingle with the rich, deep grey-brown of the lesser trees, Legolas found a lone figure seated in the grass, robes collecting the fallen gold leaves in their folds. He was barefoot, and Legolas' toes curled of their own accord within his soft boots.

"My lord Celeborn."

The Lord of the Golden Wood regarded his guest. Legolas son of Thranduil son of Oropher stirred memories Celeborn had long held. In face he was like to his father and his grandfather, but in manner he was not. Oropher and his son had been proud leaders, part of an age when Elvenkind still sought to make for themselves great kingdoms in Arda. The spirit behind Legolas' eyes was different, called Celeborn to reach farther into the past, into the twilight. Something of the archer's feä was pulled to a seeking that was yet formless.

"Legolas. Welcome."

"I do not intrude?"

"You do not." The tension of Legolas' body uncoiled, and Celeborn allowed the quiet to blossom. "You are troubled. Yet I was told of your joy and song at our borders, and my people speak of your open fellowship. What now disturbs your mind?"

"Nothing in this place, Lord. Rather my own thoughts of other times."

Celeborn gestured, and Legolas sank to the ground, feeling the spread of a great root beneath his palm, the still-soft winter grass beneath his haunches. 

"Mithrandir's loss is grievous indeed. Yet I sense you meant some other concern. Moria?"

"Moria is become a place of evil, and I hated every moment spent within its depths." Legolas turned his face to the sky, gaze flickering from leaf to twig to leaf. Again he wished they had come hither outside of winter, to see the leaves bright and living, the trees awake, the branches walked by the feet of creatures that now slept. "Yet in the great hall, there was a single shaft of sunlight, down from the mountainside, and almost I could see the city it must have been. It was beautiful, once, in its way.

"Not until we reached sanctuary here did I realise these comforts I have found in Lothlorien, and rejoiced to find, were the same hopes as held Gimli son of Gloin when we entered Moria. While I dreaded days spent buried in stone, he thought to find welcome with the friends of his father, in halls his people had built. A kingdom retaken from the Shadow. Yet all was ruin, and now even the tombs are laid waste." Sorrow washed over his countenance. "I find I am ashamed."

"As one who has been guilty of over-swift judgment in the case of your same companion, I will only say that such reflects well upon you." Legolas gave a stifled laugh. "What will you do?"

"Speak to him, as I may. I had thought to understand him, but now I feel I seen only fragments and disregarded the whole."

"Then may you see more truly now. After all, Gimli son of Gloin is wonderously courteous when so moved, as we have learned." There was a wry twist to Celeborn's smile, flavoured with his wife's pleased laughter against his spirit at the idea of being so genuinely yet innocently appreciated.

Legolas' glance sparked with amusement in return, yet burned beneath it with something else. "I should be hard pressed to overstate the beauty and strength of the Lady Galadriel, Lord. Yet for myself, I should be drawn in another direction than is my companion."

Celeborn inclined his head to the side."And how should I reward such regard? After all, leafling, my lady has been quite taken with your friend's generous and courtly attentions."

The expression that then crossed Legolas' face held such mingled horror and curiosity that Celeborn laughed deeply. 

"Fear not for my lady's virtue, or your friend's. They are entirely chaste, and so indeed may we be, if you choose. Neither he nor you need fear being a cause for disharmony, whether we come together or no."

"And you would not prefer any of your own folk? We are kin, however distant, but the trees I have known are far wilder and less kempt than those of your wood, and I fear you must find me likewise."

"In truth, there is a part of me that longs for wildness, though I know it to come with darkness and bring at its heels a loss I cannot imagine. Your Company have brought a confluence of such hope and fear and grief as Lothlorien has not felt since my lady and I made it our home—and yet for all the despair that may come, and all that I must rue for the sake of my people, there is something in me that would thank you for it, as with that very uncertainty we are stirred once more into life, and out of a limbo of waiting and defense."

Celeborn opened his near arm, and Legolas moved into the half-embrace, curling against Celeborn's side with all the eager willingness for touch of a favoured hunting dog. In the long years since Celebrian's departure and Arwen's dwelling in Imladris, there were few Celeborn had held so close. His lady gripped him as tightly as he held to her, clinging fast with equal strength, yet ever was her mind called far afield.

Celeborn pulled Legolas closer, until their mingled hair formed a paler imitation of Galadriel's Telperion and Laurelin tresses. There was a strength in this, too, this finding and granting of small joys, and Celeborn drank it in. Let all of them stretch out new roots, and grow together lightened in spirit.

***

A span of days later, it was the lord who sought out his guest. Legolas was perched on the edge of one of the high balconies, watching the pace of Lothlorien's living day. As Celeborn descended the steps towards him, he watched the archer's hands, the left digging gently into his right palm, as he were rubbing away strain.

"You have found something new to occupy you?" He settled himself at Legolas' side, enjoying the play of the breeze.

"I have been showing friend Gimli how to loose an arrow. He is not very swift, yet he manages the draw of the bow admirably despite its size."

Celeborn watched Legolas' smile, and could only imagine the sight. He expected he would find his archers distinctly amused for the next days, if there had been an audience for these lessons. And, upon reflection… 

"Yet teaching Gimli the bow would never tax your own endurance." He gestured at Legolas' hands, and the archer's cheeks brightened.

"That was the corollary of Gimli's archery lessons, lord. We agreed that he would also have the opportunity to teach me the axe." Legolas' expression was one of rueful self-amusement. "I have wielded a sword before, and a spear. You understand it is not a question of strength-"

Indeed, Celeborn knew the pull required of a longbow.

"- though Gimli was happy to debate such – but rather the way the weight is distributed unevenly-"

And Celeborn laughed, for he was himself practiced in the use of axeblades in battle, and could well imagine that one weighted for the height and reach of a Dwarf would be more than usually unwieldy in the hands of an elf.

"He has assured me that it is fortunate Elves are long-lived, as I will require all that time to practice." But the light in his eyes was bright, and shone brighter when he spoke of his friend, and Celeborn was glad of it.

**Author's Note:**

> Forgive me if the humor is gentle rather than overt! I tried my best to keep things close to canon, but the possibilities of this interaction were fun to explore. Thank you to threewalls for beta.
> 
> Legolas teaching Gimli to use a bow while in Lothlorien is based on a few seconds of Ralph Bakshi's animated LOTR, while Celeborn's use of axes in battle is headcanon borrowed from Marnie's incredibly gorgeous in-depth Celeborn fics.


End file.
